The American Spectator

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Campus Scenes

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I suppose you might defend the University by saying that the conservative evangelical groups don't play well with others. Rather than embracing and celebrating diversity as a good in itself, rather than modestly contributing their own little flavor to the multicultural stew, they, er, evangelize, which requires, of course, that they believe that they have something (universally) good and true to share.

There's the root of Georgetown's conflict with its erstwhile evangelical affiliates. It demands that everyone subscribe wholeheartedly to a thoroughgoingly pluralistic vision and suspects that the evangelicals don't.

Let me state it another way. Georgetown's evangelicals are practical or pragmatic pluralists. They experience and negotiate the intellectual, moral, and religious differences that characterize life on a contemporary university campus. They know that there will be disagreement and that all they can do is share the Word and let their lights shine. They cannot and would not compel anyone to accept even what they regard as a saving truth.

But that's apparently not good enough for the authorities at Georgetown, who seem to want everyone to love pluralism with all their hearts, souls, and minds. Of course, if everyone affirms pluralism in this way, what you really end up with is a kind of deep uniformity, not genuine pluralism at all. Yes, there are differences, but everyone regards them as accidental and superficial, not worth shouting about, let alone (perish the thought!) fighting over.

Perhaps, in the end, Georgetown does have a religious mission that's inconsistent with the goals pursued by the evangelical parachurch groups. Ironically, it's not a traditionally Catholic or Christian mission. It's even hard to distinguish it from those articulated by its moralistic and action-oriented secular counterparts. In its commitment to "deep" (but really shallow) pluralism, Georgetown University looks likes it has become just another school.

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